


all this and heaven too

by melliesgrant



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, M/M, This was requested, also i made richies mom more like how she is in the book than the movie, im sad now, richie is so depressed he doesnt talk for once in his life, richie mourning eddie's death, this is shit btw don't come in here expecting some quality stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliesgrant/pseuds/melliesgrant
Summary: richie tozier is thirteen when his best friend dies in his arms, and he doesn't know how to go on





	all this and heaven too

 

> a fight like this is one where no matter what you do right, no matter if you win, you will always lose. lose your innocence, lose your mind, lose the love of your life before you even realized that was what he was to you. this was what richard tozier was going through currently, he was thirteen years old and knee deep in shitty water, with his best friend in his arms and his shirt stained with said friends blood. edward kaspbrak was dying in richie’s arms, one of his own missing, and richie didn’t know how to react. his body reacted before his mind did, that was obvious, with the tears welling up behind his thick rimmed glasses, his body shaking uncontrollably, shaking the small dead boy in his arms, and his heart beat, beat, beating out of his chest.
> 
> his mind couldn’t process the loss, or maybe it just didn’t want to, he didn’t want to realize the weight in his arms was eddie. he didn’t want to realize the warmth on him was from the blood leaking out of eddie’s now missing arm and onto his clothing. he didn’t want to realize that with eddie’s brown eyes closed he would never see them in person again, never look into them and feel himself falling towards the petite boy, wanting to graze his lips softly against his and give him the air he always seemed to be missing. he didn’t want to realize that with eddie’s hair wet he wouldn’t get to run his hands through it one last time and feel the softness of it, the way his curls came out with a simple brushing of his fingers. he didn’t want to realize everything he hid from his own heart and now could never act on, everything he wanted with this dead boy in his arms. it all hits him when he doesn’t want it, and now with this boy in his arms he chokes out a sob that could make the whole world cry.
> 
> he chokes out a sob that shakes him to the core as he pulls his dead friend up to his chest, hugging him one more time and wetting his shirt with his tears. “eddie, eddie! wake up! please!” he’s desperate, maybe delusional, or maybe just begging for some higher being to bring the life back into his small boy that he loves so much. he know it won’t work, because while he can live in a world where a shapeshiffting clown is real, he can’t live in a world where whatever god is out there takes sympathy and brings his boy back to life. 
> 
> he feels arms wrap around him, and in his mind he thinks it’s eddie, until he feels there is two and remembers his boy only has one now. he feels arms and arms and arms wrap around him, he isn’t sure which pair belongs to who but he knows who it is. it’s bill and bev, and stan and mike, and ben. it’s his friends minus one, sans the one that matters.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> one week goes by and his funeral is coming up, and richie can’t stand to breathe without him. his heart aches for what he can’t have, and he starts to wish he too died in that sewer with his boy. he wants to stop breathing but he knows he has to, so instead he stops eating. it’s like a breakup sickness minus the breakup, minus the relationship, only feelings that were never acted upon and a death before he could. he doesn’t eat, he feels like he will throw up if he does. he loses weight and his mother worries, because she may not understand her son but she understands death and the toll it takes.
> 
> she knocks on his door and asks “honey, are you okay?” and “please eat richie, you’re a growing boy, you need to eat.” nothing works, he doesn’t leave his room, he doesn’t shower, he sits on his bed and lets himself rot. 
> 
> his friends come to visit, they are faceless knocks on the door and tears begging him to let them in. he knows they are suffering too, he knows they can suffer together, but he sits in silence with his door locked until they leave. he listens to them cry outside his door and he cries inside his room, he thinks that’s the closest he can be to anyone right now.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> he only goes out for the funeral. he’s in all black and his hair is brushed back, it’s long and curly and he uses it to hide his tears. he walks in hearing eddie’s mothers tears, sobs that ring throughout the church, and he feels a guilt even worse than before. he moves to the crying woman, she’s fat and filled with sorrow, and he rests a hand on her shoulder. “mrs. kaspbrak.” his voice cracks, he hasn’t spoken in a week. “i’m so sorry.” it’s all he can muster out, his eyes filling with tears and he worries he too will soon join her in loud sobs.
> 
> she turns to him, hate in her eyes, and tears running down her chins. “this is your fault, it’s all of your groups fault. you did this to him, you put him in this casket, you put him in this grave.” she hisses to him, yelling in the church at a thirteen year old boy who lost his best friend. richie agrees with her, it is his fault, it’s all of their faults. they shouldn’t have brought eddie into this, they should have kept him safe. 
> 
> “you’re right. i’m sorry.” is all he says before walking away, hearing her scream and cry even louder, as he moves to the back. he does not sit with his family, he does not sit with his friends, he sits alone. he doesn’t know how to handle these emotions, and he isolates himself with them.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> summer ends and school starts, and richie finally talks to his friends again. things are different though, he isn’t the same, his loud mouth is shut more now, his bones protrude out of his skin, his hair is longer and unruly, it looks like it hasn’t been brushed in weeks. no one says anything, they all sit there with him in silence, doing all they can for their friend. they don’t push him, they simply hold him in their arms and rub his back when he needs it, and leaves him alone when he needs that more.
> 
> he tries to be himself again as the weeks go by, cracking jokes as his voice cracks, and yet it isn’t the same. he lacks the passion, the true humor, the things that made him richie ‘trashmouth’ tozier. he wonders if he’ll ever be the same again, if he’ll ever move on. he doesn’t think so, but he can try.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> the losers are in high school and richie finds himself slowly overcoming the pain, never truly moving on, but finding ways to  _go_ on. he makes his jokes again, his friends rolling over in laughter or giving him a “beep beep” to make sure he shuts his mouth before he regrets it. he gets through his classes, tries not to get in any fights, and he convinces the world he is okay again. he convinces everyone he’s back to his old trashmouth self. he thinks he’s tricked them all, but he’s wrong.
> 
> bill denbrough walks him home one day, the walk is silent except for a few jokes richie cracks, but they never land and they keep going. bill invites himself in, he knows richie wouldn’t, and forces himself through the doorway and into richie’s room. richie’s confused, following him into his own bedroom and wondering why the intrusion? bill turns to him, his stutter almost gone. “richie, i know you b-better than anyone else. you don’t have to hide t-this from me. i’m your best friend.” that’s all he has to say before richie is in his arms and crying. letting someone comfort him through his tears.
> 
> he cries and cries and big bill understands, and he cries too as he holds his lanky friend. they cry until they both run out of tears, and bill leaves and they never speak of it again. it doesn’t need to be spoken about, it’s a silent conversation whenever they look into each others eyes, with a nod of understanding. that’s all that needs to be done, that’s all that needs to be said. 
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> he goes to the kaspbrak’s one day, he hasn’t been there since eddie was alive. the last time he spoke to mrs. kaspbrak was at the funeral, and yet he still finds himself in the all too familiar porch of the boy he once loved. he knocks, knocks, knocks and awaits an answer. once before he would have knocked until the door opened, now he lacked the energy to do such. so he waited for the woman to (hopefully) answer the door.
> 
> she’s bigger now, seemingly eating her emotions away. she looks worse than usual over all, bags under her eyes, and a sadness that radiates off of her skin. he feels sympathetic for the woman, even after all she’s done, he knows she only ever meant well by eddie. 
> 
> she sneers at him, asking with annoyance in her tone why he’s here, why he has the  _audacity_ to step foot on her property. his voice cracks as he asks “can i just go into eddie’s room one last time?” he can feel the tears coming into this eyes (he has contacts now). he doesn’t know if the crack of his voice or the tears in his eyes tear down one of her walls, but she lets him in.
> 
> he knows the way into eddie’s room, needing no guidance from his mother, and she leaves him to do whatever it is he has to. he walks into the room, still the way eddie must have left it. he didn’t know how it was before he died that day, but he could only assume as much. his things were all still there, though everything was clean and organized. was that an act of eddie or a mourning mrs. k? he didn’t know, but he walked around the room and sat on the bed. he laid down, smelling  _eddie_ on the pillows and the blankets and feeling like he was disturbing a museum. he wondered if his own smell ruined that of eddie’s, but he didn’t care enough to stop. he laid there and wished it was him and eddie laying down, holding each other and running his hands through his hair. oh he would trade all this and heaven too for that, but the world still wasn’t one that gave it’s sympathies to him, and when he opened his blurry eyes he was still alone in the room of a dead boy.
> 
> he looked around once more as he got up, grazing his fingers over eddie’s things like a final farewell. he opened his drawers and opened his closet, wanting the full eddie kaspbrak experience. he rummages through eddie’s clothes hung up, never to be worn again. he rips one off it’s mantel and hugs it close to him, smelling eddie and crying into the closest he will ever get to him. he stuffs it in his backback and says his goodbyes to mrs. kaspbrak, and runs away before he can get caught.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> they graduate high school and throw their caps in the air. it’s a time of cheers and graduation gifts, of parties for last hurrahs and fucking that one person you never got to in high school. it’s time to get drunk and reminisce about all the good before you leave and remember how shit it really was. richie tozier is now eighteen, and it’s been five years since eddie kaspbrak died in his arms.
> 
> he’s much better about it now, more mature, more able to handle his feelings. he knows how to think about eddie and smile now, think about the good times and what could have been without bawling his eyes out. he still cries from time to time about it, but he’s grown. he got help from his friends, and from the universe insisting that this was tragic but meant to happen. 
> 
> he packs up to go to college, things in boxes and bags, he leaves derry and doesn’t want to come back again. this place is filled with the bad memories of his youth and his lost love, and he needs to be able to escape the constant sorrow this town brought upon him. he grabbed his bags and gets in his car, saying his goodbyes to his friends with their numbers saved in his phone, and his family who doesn’t get him but still loves him none the less. he says goodbye to derry and the loss it has brought upon him, but in his bag he still has that shirt. that shirt once worn by a thirteen year old boy he loved, a boy who died in his arms, and a boy he can never forget. 
> 
> he wonders if they were star crossed lovers, meant to be but the world had some vendetta against them, the stars fighting against their futures. he also wonders if there is such thing as reincarnation, he hopes there is. he hopes when he dies he will be someone new, and he will meet a new eddie, and maybe in that lifetime the stars will grant them some mercy and let them be together. let them be happy.


End file.
